Most Tibetan translators are interpreters of the uttered paragraphs which they remember from the just finished discourse of a Lama. Most preform "condensations" of the Lama's words with the resultant uncertainty about total fidelity to his actual message.
Matthieu Ricard is a Gelugpa mouthpiece for the Dalai Lama and in many ways professes a type of neo-buddhist presentation to Western practitioners. We don't need more neo-buddhism with its über-synthesis of rationalism and new-age platitudes. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer" rick@ wrote: > > > > http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2225634/Is-worlds-happiest-man\ -Brain-scans-reveal-French-monk-abnormally-large-capacity-joy-meditation\ .html > > I've actually seen Matthieu Ricard do his thing, while > translating for the Dalai Lama or other Tibetan teachers, > and have always wondered how much of his "brain plasticity" > is the result of how "simultaneous translation" is done > in that context. > > Translating for a Tibetan Buddhist teacher is *NOT* the > way you see it done at the UN. Instead of translating > phrase by phrase, the translator sits quietly beside > the teacher, listening but taking no notes, and allowing > the teacher to speak as long as he wants. Then, when the > teacher pauses, the translator relates what the teacher > said, in a different language. > > The teacher could have been talking for two minutes or > twelve, but the translators seem to always (according > to people I know who are bilingual in Tibetan and English) > spot-on, and perfect. Nothing left out, nothing added, > and nothing mistranslated. Being chosen to be the trans- > lator for a Tibetan teacher is considered a teaching > in itself, developing the ability to DO THIS. > > I strongly suspect that this has a great deal to do with > the differences one sees in scans of his brain. >
